by K. J. Emrick
Her mistake.
“Where are you, Sidney? There’s no sense in hiding. I know you’re in there. I’m going to kill you. Why not just come out and make it easy on both of us?”
Kicking my pants off, I drop down to one knee, swiping the blood away from my eye again, and steady my gun on the door.
“Not coming out?” I hear Andrea say to me. “Fine. I’m putting my gun away. I won’t hurt you. I’m just going to let you walk out of this house. Hear me?”
In my future-sense, I see the door opening. I see Andrea as she comes inside, the gun still drawn, aiming in my direction… shooting the rest of her bullets… center mass in my chest…
The door opens.
Andrea comes in, gun pointed in front of her.
She sees me.
The gun starts to turn my way.
With a slow exhale of breath I fire two shots. The first takes Andrea in her shoulder. The second one goes right between her eyes.
I’m never proud of a clean shot. A clean shot means someone died, and it was me who killed them. I can’t be proud of taking someone’s life.
I can just be happy that I’m still alive.
Chapter Fifteen
Andrea was dead. Katarina was still very much alive.
Now I did call the police. Not much choice when you’re involved in a shooting. I’m not saying that I call them every time I do something that might be considered illegal, because I enjoy spending my time outside of jail rather than behind bars, but this time someone is dead. That needed to be reported. Besides. I didn’t do anything wrong.
It took the officers who responded to the scene exactly an hour and a half to determine that exact same thing.
Lieutenant Webb was the ranking officer on scene, and despite the fact that he glared at me every second of every minute that he was there, he grudgingly agreed with his people that the shooting was justified. He didn’t come and tell me that himself, of course. He couldn’t bear to tell me something that nice. A detective comes to give me the news, telling me that I could go for now. I’d have to come down to the precinct house tomorrow to give an official statement. Someone would call me with the time.
I tell him I’ll clear my schedule. Not sure he picked up on my sarcasm.
Katarina was actually taken away from the scene long before I was given the go ahead to leave. An ambulance came to bring her to the hospital. She was going to need treatment for the raw abrasions to her wrist where the metal cuff had held her tight, as well as for a mild case of dehydration. I’m very certain that Andrea had intended to kill her captive once Barlow was dead, and there’s no sense in taking good care of someone you’ve got chained to a wall when you’re just going to kill them anyway.
So that was it. Case closed. Katarina was safe. Although she was still going to have to explain her actions and why she had been using Barlow and Carol, that was someone else’s headache. Sure, I wanted to know, but my job had been to find her. I was done.
Andrea’s body was taken away before I was released, too. She left in a black body bag, in the back of the medical examiner’s van. No ambulances for her.
When I finally got back to Roxy, I was riding an emotional high. It feels good to close a case, and it felt even better when I could say I’d done a good job. This was one of the good days, fatal shooting aside. This was one of the days I got to take home with me.
And now, it was a day I got to share with a good friend.
As soon as Roxy’s door slammed, Harry poofed himself up out of his rug. I had to roll the window on my side down, just a little, to let out the smoke and the heavy smell of flowers. We were down the street from all the emergency vehicles, thankfully, and all the gawking neighbors from the next street over, so no one noticed when a guy just magically appeared in my front seat.
“Sidney Stone!” he greeted me enthusiastically. “You are alive! Were you successful?”
“I was, Harry, I was. Thanks to some great advice from you, and some amazing skills on my part, and a lot of good luck. Oh, here.” From my pocket I pull out the balled-up sash I’d borrowed from him. “You’ll want this back. It did the trick.”
“I am glad to hear it. Your ruse was unorthodox, to say the least, but not unlike the Trojan Horse, I suppose.”
I laugh out loud, even though it was a poor analogy and an even worse joke. I didn’t care. I felt good. Nothing was going to get me down, ever again. That’s how I felt. “Oh, hey. I should call Christian and let him know how things turned out. He’s just sitting in that hospital bed worrying about me, I’ll bet.”
Harry’s lips pucker, and his eyes find mine. There’s that weird vibe again. Jealousy, sort of, even though that’s crazy. Harry’s a genie. Both of these guys are my friends, and that’s all. As I take out my cellphone, I put my hand over Harry’s. “Hey. I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Hmm. Somehow I doubt that, Sidney Stone, but I will take the compliment.”
“Good. You should.” I dial the hospital number from memory. I may have ended up there once or twice. Or more. “I’m just going to let Christian know everything and then you and I can take that joyride I mentioned… hello? Yes. I’m calling to talk to a patient there. Christian Caine. That’s right. He’s a detective with the Detroit Police Department. He’s on the second floor? Can you connect me?”
As I wait for the phone to ring and be picked up again, I trace the pattern on Harry’s wrist cuff with a finger. They still look almost like letters to me. Very interesting.
“Hello,” a voice says in my ear. “Second floor nurse’s station, this is Gwenda.”
“Hi, Gwenda. My name is Sidney Stone and I’m calling to be connected to a patient room, please?”
“Certainly, sweetie. Which patient?”
“Detective Christian Caine.”
There’s silence on the line for several heartbeats. For far too long. There’s never silence this long unless it’s bad news.
Just like that, my good mood disappears.
“Gwenda? What’s wrong? What’s going on with Christian?”
“Um. He’s not on our floor at this time. I’m afraid Mister Caine is… um.”
I hear it with my future-sense, in my mind, before she says it out loud.
He’s in critical condition.
“He’s in critical condition.”
I gasp when the words are repeated for real, and my world comes spiraling down to a pinpoint in front of my eyes. “What happened? Why? He was fine when he got there. I mean, no, he was all banged up and maybe his arm was broken but he was going to be okay! What happened? What’s wrong?”
Harry’s hand catches ahold of mine now, and his touch is the only thing keeping me from shaking all the way down to my bones.
“I’m sorry,” Gwenda says, in a professional nurse voice I’ve heard lots of times before. “Mister Caine had complications after he arrived and they had to take him in for surgery right away. I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than that unless you’re family. Are you family, dear?”
“We’re just like family,” I say, knowing that no matter how true that is it won’t be enough. “He’s like… he’s like a brother to me.”
No. That wasn’t it. Not just that. He was more to me than that but there weren’t words enough to describe what he was to me.
“I’m sorry, Miss Stone. I simply can’t say more unless you’re actually related—”
“Is he going to die?”
I couldn’t help it. I had to ask.
“I’m sorry.” She just keeps repeating those words. I hate those words. “I can’t say anything more.”
I hang up. There’s no sense in continuing this conversation because it’s just going to keep going around in the same circles. Then I sit there, staring at my phone because I don’t know what to do. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.
“He’s in surgery,” I tell Harry. “They said something about complications, and I think… I think he might die. I don’t understand, Harry
. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
He lifts my hand up, tucking it against his bare chest. “People get hurt, my lady. They get hurt, and sometimes…”
“Don’t you say it!” I snarl at him. My future-sense might not work with him, but I know exactly what he was going to say, and he better not use that word! “That’s not going to happen. There has to be something I can do. There has to be something.”
“There is not,” he says in a gentle, soothing voice. “You are not a miracle worker. You are not God, to decide who lives and dies. You don’t have that power.”
“But you do.” That thought pops into my head so suddenly and so forcefully that it has to come bursting out of me. “You can save him, Harry. I know you’ve got all these rules that go along with your magic like no bringing the dead back to life, but Christian isn’t dead yet and you can save him. I wish you would save him, Harry. Do you hear me? I’m making this wish. Save him, Harry. Save him, please.”
His expression is heartbreaking. He can’t do it. I know he can’t do it, and I knew he couldn’t do it before I even asked for it, but I had to try. For Christian’s sake. I wished that it could work. As hard as I had ever wished for anything in my whole entire life, I wished for this one thing, right now, to become real.
But it couldn’t happen. Because I’d already used up my three wishes.
One, two, three. That was all Harry could give me for each case I worked on because of his stupid rules. He had all this awesome power, but he couldn’t do anything with it unless it was within the rules. That’s what he’d told me the very first day we met. Everything had to be by the rules. If I didn’t play by the rules, then I’d lose him from my life.
Just like I might lose Christian.
Rules. All these rules.
Except.
There was something else. Harry had told me that I would only get three wishes, yes. He did say that, but…
But he also said I could negotiate for more.
“I want to bargain,” I say, the words coming out in a rush. “You told me I could bargain for more and I’m doing that right now, Harry. I just need one more wish, and I’ll pay whatever I have to for it. Tell me. Tell me what it’s going to take?”
This had to work. I could almost feel Christian’s life ending. I kept looking down at my cellphone, wondering if a flash of future-sense would show me the screen lighting up, the hospital’s name displayed for me while the ringtone buzzed at me and a nurse waited to tell me he was gone…
No. This had to work.
I met his eyes without looking away and pulled my hand away from his. “I want to bargain. You tell me what your price is, Harry, you tell me right now!”
For an awful moment I was sure that he was still going to tell me no, that rules were rules, and even though he was this mighty, powerful genie he was still bound by the rules.
But then he smiled, leaning into his seat. “Sidney Stone, you continue to surprise me.”
“I don’t need your compliments.” I put all the steel into my voice that I could muster in that moment. “You said we can bargain for more wishes. You said. Now, I need you to tell me what it’s going to cost me.”
“Well, just like with everything, my lady, there are rules to this as well…”
“Damn your rules. Just tell me what I have to do.”
His expression shifts as he tilts his head, regarding me intently. “The way this works,” he says, each word coming out slowly, “is that you have to give me something of equal or greater value in exchange for another wish.”
That was all? Just that? I valued Christian’s life dearly, but I’d pay that price for his sake, whatever it was. “I’ll do it. Anything. Just name it.”
“Hmm. You might not like it.”
“Anything, Harry.”
“Well…”
“Harry just tell me!” I could almost feel the sand from Christian’s hourglass slipping through my fingers while we sat here, dickering about the price.
“Very well.” His arms cross over his chest, and his eyes dare me to argue with what he’s about to say. “After four more stories between us—”
“Cases, Harry, they’re called cases. This isn’t some crime novel, this is real life.”
One of his eyebrows quirks in what could have been amusement but in that moment I couldn’t care less. “Yes. As you say, after four more cases where you ask me for help, on your last wish, you must ask that I be set free.”
“Set you free? I can do that?”
“Mmm,” he hums. “After a time of service, a genie can be set free by their master if that master so chooses. Yes. It’s in the rules somewhere. I can’t ask for it right away, but after we’ve been together and you have made good use of my powers, then I will have earned that freedom. If you’re willing to give it to me.”
I gape at him. Here I’d been expecting him to ask for my soul or a couple of pints of my blood or for me to name my firstborn child after him but all he wanted in exchange for Christian’s life was… his freedom. Something I hadn’t even known was in my power to give him.
“I’ll do it. Of course I’ll do it for you, Harry. Four cases, and you’re free. Now just—”
“Consider carefully, Sidney Stone.” His hand comes down to rest on my forearm, and I can tell how seriously he’s taking this. “You have seen how much help I can be to you. As good as you are, you were better with my help. It may seem like nothing now but after the next case, and the next one and the one after that you may come to rely on my help in ways you can only imagine. It may be harder than you think to give me up. If you choose not to honor our deal when the time comes, then I will be forced to retract the help I give you now.”
That stops me cold. “So if I don’t set you free after promising to, then you’ll retract your end of the deal too?”
He nods his head, just once, with a finality that makes my heart stutter.
If I have him save Christian now, and he takes his help away later, Christian would still die. Now I see the seriousness of what I’m doing. If I make this deal, I have to follow through.
“I understand,” I tell him. I’ve already started thinking of Harry as a friend. His freedom is something I’ll gladly give him. “I’m making this choice of my own free will, Genie Harris. Four more cases, and my last wish is that you go free but for right now, I wish that you would save—”
“Hold, Sidney Stone!”
I pull my arm away from his gentle touch to slam my fist down on his chest. “What! What is it this time? I need you to do this for me and I can’t keep waiting because Christian doesn’t have that kind of time! What is it, Harry? What?”
“You are forgetting one thing.” He brushes at the spot where I punched him, like a fly had landed on his muscles. “You might die as well, my lady.”
“What in God’s name are you…”
But then I remember. My fortune. You will die, is what my coffee grounds had said, according to Harry. With everything that had happened since then I’d completely forgotten about it.
You will die.
Leaning in closer, Harry’s voice is almost a whisper. “I can lift that prophecy from you. If you wish it, I can remove that dark cloud from over your head. The choice is yours, Sidney Stone. Save your friend’s life, or your own. If you do not live to see the end of your fourth case, what good is your bargain anyway?”
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry as sand. I was being given a choice, and both options had bad consequences. Either way, someone could die. I mean, it was possible that the talented doctors at the hospital would save Christian’s life without any magical intervention. It was also possible that the prophecy Harry had read in the little specks of coffee left over in my cup was just nonsense. I might not need this extra wish at all.
Thinking it through, I look up into Harry’s eyes, and I saw how seriously he was taking this. I truly did think of him as a friend now, and I might not be able to get any sort of future flashes from him that m
ight tell me his motives, but I don’t believe he would play me like that. I had to believe both possibilities could happen, if I didn’t bargain for this one more wish.
I had to choose.
This man had poofed himself into my life only a few days ago, but I already trusted him. I relied on him being in my life. It would be sad to see him go after I gave him his freedom but if a few cases with him was all I was going to get, then it was a fair bargain, in my opinion.
“I understand,” I say again. The anger was ebbing out of me, and the anxiety over which choice to make went with it. I knew what I would choose. I mean really, there was only one choice to make. “I accept your bargain. Now. This is my wish.’
Lifting his arm up high, he smiles and readies his fingers for one, final snap.
Chapter Sixteen
I drove Roxy down the street at exactly the posted speed limit, humming to myself as my apartment building came into view. It felt good to be alive.
My case was closed, I’d given my last statement to the police on the whole matter, and even Lieutenant Webb had grudgingly told me that I’d done good work. This time. He had to add those two words in to make himself feel better, but what did I care? Everything had worked out the way it was supposed to, and I got to drive home and enjoy this beautiful summer day.
Just an hour ago, at the Seventh Precinct, I’d learned that Katarina Borishev was on her way back to Croatia courtesy of the United States Marshalls and the Department of Homeland Security. It turned out she was wanted in her native country for a fraud committed on her husband. Yes, her husband. She was already married back there, in Croatia, a fact she conveniently left off all of her visa applications. Something she neglected to tell Barlow Michaelson, too.
His perfect girlfriend turned out to be someone who used everyone in their life. Barlow, her rich boyfriend, who got her here to the United States—and then unwittingly gave her access to at least two of his bank accounts. And then Carol, her talented geeky boyfriend, who was going to get her false IDs through his DMV job so she could disappear and start a new life.
